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"Alternative treatments for gender dysphoria" have practically no research to back them up and people should know that before they try them out. Most of the evidence to support these treatments are anecdotal at best.
There are a handful of case studies of people with gender dysphoria being treated with therapy instead of transition but most of these people were judged be different from " true transsexuals" and there was almost never long-term follow-up.
Even shrinks who were convinced trans people were mentally ill and wanted to "cure" us all with therapy had to admit therapy rarely worked and that medical transition was the only thing that helped some of their patients. They blamed us for being "too crazy" to be "cured".
In detrans communities, you have people giving testimonials about "alternative treatments" for dysphoria but a lot of these detrans people are very ideological. Some online groups for detrans people don't allow people to recommend or support anything "trans affirming".
In some of the forums for detrans women I used to belong to, you had to use female pronouns for anyone, you couldn't say anything supportive of identifying as trans or transitioning and "reconciling with being female" was the only accepted way to deal with dysphoria.
These spaces framed being trans and transitioning as forms of self-destruction and something like an addiction. Supporting someone's trans identity would be seen as encouraging self-harm.
When I started having doubts about my detransition, I didn't feel safe discussing them with other detrans women because of such community norms. I didn't feel like people ever considered that these "alternative treatments" could not work or even be harmful.
I don't think all "alternative treatments for gender dysphoria" are necessarily bullshit or harmful. Some seem to work for some people but there's no research into how effective they are, how they compare to medical transition, what the long term effects are, possible risks, etc.
Some of what I tried when I was detrans did help but it didn't make me not trans. Different treatments are going to work with different kinds of dysphoria. Sometimes medical transition is the best option, sometimes psychological treatments work better, sometimes both work best.
Having a range of treatments for gender dysphoria makes sense because people are different and what works for one person is not going to work for another. Detrans people probably have found ways to treat some kinds of dysphoria but they're not going to work for everyone.
And it would be good to actually study this, learn more about different kinds of dysphoria and what works best to alleviate them, rather than going on testimonials and other anecdotal information. Right now, "alternative treatments" are more experimental than transition.
Like I don't think a person could give informed consent for therapy to alleviate gender dysphoria because of how little good research there is to support it as an effective treatment. I would be suspect of any therapist claiming they could "cure" gender dysphoria with therapy.
Anyone trying "alternative treatments" should be prepared for the possibility that they're not going to work. They should know that there might be unknown risks associated with such treatments. That there's no research showing how effective any of these treatments are.
It's fine to talk about potential risks of medical transition, people have to know them to make an informed choice. But people also need to know about possible risks of "alternative treatments" as well and at the moment we don't know what they are.